Lancelot washed away the very last bit of blood and carefully dried his hands. He knew exactly what he'd done, how he might pay for it, but in this case he'd never bring himself to care.
Another Roman dead by his own hand, another of the bastards who had so richly deserved this. Spitting once over his shoulder in such loving memory of this particular bastard, he started the walk back to the barracks, knowing well that they would come for him soon enough, but not willing to hand himself over anyway. Besides, he had more to see to.
"Just a little problem I had to take care of." the knight greeted his brothers, smiling an easy smile. We all know how accidents can happen."
"Easy enough when those accidents are all around you." Bors shook his head. "And someday when you've gotten us all killed..."
"So let them try." The others may have wondered at his laugh, but it was due him, Lancelot decided, managing to catch the eye of Tristan who merely nodded. Though all of them knew it had been necessary somewhere in their hearts, the quiet scout seemed as always, the only one to know how good it felt. "What?" Lancelot continued, turning to a frowning Dagonet, "At least it won't be decimation. There's too few of us for that. And well worth it that we all die for...is Gawain still with Galahad?"
"At least for as long as they let him. Though with what you've just done..."
"I hid the body well. And don't say that he didn't deserve it after, damn you!" Lancelot fought the wave of fury well enough that he did not punch Dagonet's face for that, but not enough to keep his fists from shaking. "You know what they'd have done to men at home who dared do this to our women, what we'd be bound to do..."
"If you've forgotten this isn't our land, what rights have they ever given us, and Galahad is not..."
"He's a pretty boy instead! And I say damn them and their rights if they're going to keep this up much longer. Look at us." Lancelot's voice carried, until it seemed to shake the walls. "And I don't mean just Galahad."
"So you suggest we run? What then when they drag us all back instead of only you this time? You'd see us dead for..."
"I would sooner die than remain here like this, than see one of us hurt again, than see Galahad the whore to any...least of all that self indulgent piece of dung..." That problem was solved now, Lancelot had done what he could for it anyway. Even so. "Do you think even this?" Lancelot's head jerked violently toward his splattered tunic. "Is doing him much good now? It won't be better until we're clear of this rotting place, as far as we can get. And if that means we die, then so we die. Better certainly that he die than go through it again. As we all know he will."
"If Gawain has much to say about it?" From his perch near the door, Tristan spoke up. "And anyway, he'll make it harder, you'll have made those others think."
"But thinking isn't good en..."
"As you are showing us, loud and quite clear." The scout shook his head, a mass of dark hair falling in his eyes. "How'd you manage this one anyway?"
"I strung him up, removed some things. Amazing how quickly a man can lose all of his blood, when you're trying." Amazing how long it took you too, when you were waiting it out, wanting to be sure that there was no way he'd revive. Lancelot had considered for a moment, slicing off the man's head at the neck and carrying it back to the fort as a trophy but there were some limits to what he could accomplish without earning himself a worse death.
Despite his talk of running, despite the need to be away, he knew he wouldn't do it. He'd tried it two years ago, before he'd marked his sixteenth summer and sometimes he imagined that the scars still hurt. But doubtlessly less than Galahad, barely fifteen himself now, would feel the other deeper scars in his future. It would be better now to get him away at least, but Lancelot had no clue how.
"The real point is we needed to do something." Lancelot continued, when he thought he wouldn't try to smash the walls in with his fists. "That we still need to do something, to keep him from whoever's next. We're not likely to get a good one..."
"Those exist?" Bors snorted and Tristan smirked, though Dagonet seemed unconvinced somehow. Lancelot had heard enough of him urging the others to be reasonable in the past and as surely as the fires in the Romans' Hell, he didn't want to hear it now.
"Only in their minds, Bors." Lancelot assured him, clenching his still shaking hands into hard fists. "Only in their minds, which explains everything. Think they'll let me see the brat if I ask nicely?"
"With the trail of blood you're leaving?" Tristan shook his head. "Medicus'd kill you before he gave anyone else the chance. Always throws a fit over a little blood on his nice floors."
"Not when it's their precious Roman Blood." Lancelot muttered, feeling the need, somehow to press this for everything that he was worth, ridiculous as he knew it was. He was just in that mood today, the one where he needed to press things, take them to extremes to prove his point. Of course these were the moods that usually ended in slaps and punches, most of those not from Romans, the moods that always lead to situations just like this, three of them, well concealed in the past four years he'd been here. "And anyway, I welcome death." he shot back hotly, wishing that things were that simple.
"So suit yourself. When they kill you, I want your horse."
"If." Lancelot corrected, and here he took delight in the paradox of the situation. "But when they kill me they'll as good have killed you, and they haven't forgotten what happened at Grifflet's execution. At least if they're smart." he added, a grim smile crossing his face as he recalled the week following that event, the latest young and stupid commander left to bleed, struck with an 'accidental' arrow.
No one had believed in that story, but there'd been no contrary evidence so Lancelot had been allowed his stand, wounding severely instead of killing that particular officer, but then he had not been so bad as some, just a proper victim in the scheme of things. Poetic if Lancelot had been that type of man. But there were other things than poetry.
"So I'm off to pay my visit." Lancelot decided, pausing in the doorway to look at each of his brothers in turn then smirking because if he had fear, at least he didn't show it. "You can tell them where to find me when they come to drag me off." he added, giving them all one final wave before he headed out into the fire.
As he had known, they never came.